Tag: star wars

As some of you may know, yesterday was “Star Wars Day.” May the fourth be with you. Get it?

Science fiction author John Scalzi, perhaps best known for his “Old Man’s War” series, took the occasion to troll Star Wars fans, comparing those who don’t recognize the awfulness of the three prequel movies to the folks who refuse to vaccinate their children.

“Kingkiller Chronicles” author Pat Rothfuss joined the fun.

http://twitter.com/#!/PatrickRothfuss/status/463152903738630144

It’s not an official nerd party until one of us gripes about “Firefly” being cancelled. Even Ensign Wesley Crusher (a.k.a. Wil Wheaton) knows that.

I’m a huge nerd, and I love when others embrace their geeky sides, too.

Science-fiction and fantasy movies have moved from niche interest to a huge part of popular culture in the past several decades. The “Lord of the Rings,” “Harry Potter,” and rebooted “Star Trek” movies are all examples of nerd culture making its way to the mainstream. Even more popular than those franchises, however, is one series set in a galaxy far, far away.

You’ll surely recognize the song this huge cargo ship, the MSC, is playing as it pulls into port in Hamburg, Germany.

Director Ed Wood was infamous for piecing together stock footage to complete his low-budget films. As a result, his cult classic Plan 9 from Outer Space is widely regarded as, well, the worst movie of all time. But he’s not the only director guilty of copying and pasting to save a buck.

It’s no surprise that producing a blockbuster tends to cost a studio tons of cash. Even the smallest special effect can add up to thousands (or millions) of dollars, so it’s kind of understandable why they might try to cut a corner here and there. But when the movie connoisseurs over at Screen Rant took a second look at these big-budget films, they couldn’t help but think the producers probably could have been a bit more subtle. Each one was caught giving their audience a strange sense of déjà vu:

1. This is actually one of the least terrible things about the unfortunate prequel franchise.

If there were two things I absolutely loved when I was a kid, it was Lego and Star Wars. So when I saw these incredible miniature photographs by Avanaut of the snow battle on the planet Hoth from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back using only Lego men, memories of my childhood come rushing back in a storm of fanboy nostalgia. The creator of these photographs is Finnish illustrator and designer Vesa Lehtimäki or “Avanaut”. He started making his first Lego pictures set on the snowy planet of Hoth back in 2009 and has slowly been adding more and more over the years. These pictures are even more fitting right now, what with the freezing weather we’ve been having here in the United States and with the new Star Wars movies in the pipeline.

Bob Iger said today that charging online viewers directly for some of its most popular programming is a possibility, but cautioned “we do not believe that there is any reason for us” to do it right now.

Disney chief executive Bob Iger said today on a call with analysts to discuss the company’s earnings that the it could potentially offer some of its most popular video content — ESPN, Star Wars, and Marvel — over the internet directly to consumers. Iger said that the company “may have an opportunity to bring out a Marvel-type product and possibly even Star Wars.”

Iger said that Disney could do this to boost its own profits “by taking out the middle man” and to “create a closer relationship with the a consumer that can be mined for other revenue generating purposes.” But none of this is just around the corner — Iger also stressed that for now, the cable bundle system is working just fine for the company and its bottom line.

Marvel Entertainment and Lucasfilm are both subsidiaries of Disney and, in addition to new Star Wars and Avengers movies being produced and distributed by Disney, Marvel’s Agents of Shield and Agent Carter air on Disney-owned ABC.

ESPN, ESPN 2 and the Disney Channel are already available on Dish Network’s broadband Sling TV product and Disney makes ESPN content available to cable subscribers through Watch ESPN. In its latest nine year contract with the NBA, ESPN won the rights to air some basketball games directly over the web. ESPN’s programming has never been more popular, especially the recent inaugural college football playoff.

Iger said that there are 12 million broadband-only subscribers who don’t have cable, and “that’s the subscriber that we’re trying to reach with the Sling package,” although he also noted that “it’s a worthwhile experiment…to try to convince young people or younger people to sign up to cable when they either wouldn’t have signed up for it at all or they might have waited.”

But don’t get too excited about watching the Avengers, Skywalkers, and Crimson Tide directly to your TV without a cable subscription. “We also are mindful of the value of the expanded basic bundle to this company” Iger said. “We do not believe that there is any reason for us to attempt to take out some of this product — particularly ESPN — quickly or right now.”

Star Wars was possibly the greatest movie series in the history of cinema. However, with success comes parody and, thousands of parodies later, it’s getting harder and harder to find a new perspective on the movies. Enter Deviantart user DenisM79. He wanted to try his hand at flipping the classic story on its head and ummmmmm… MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Watch as he masterfully turns Star Wars into a thrilling High School story with his spectacular illustrations: